


Signs, Not Always Meaning Portents

by embroiderama



Category: Stephen King - The Stand
Genre: Deaf Character, M/M, Sign Language, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-03 08:24:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick Andros has always been good at finding ways of communicating that don't involve speaking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signs, Not Always Meaning Portents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Speranza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Speranza/gifts).



> Thank you to janissa11 for the beta! FWIW, I went with book canon more than miniseries canon here. The book seemed to make no reference to Nick signing.

 

 

Boulder in the early fall glittered around Nick as he walked down the road from the K-Mart outside of town, backpack full of supplies slung over his shoulder. Six years on his own, six years walking around the country on his own two feet--sometimes he missed that. As much as he could appreciate the benefits of being part of a community, smack in the middle of it rather than skirting around the edges, there was something about empty space around him and blacktop under his feet that felt like home.

He had a bike on the back porch at the house, had a dozen friends who would have given him a ride out to the store, but he had plenty of time. No committee meeting, no shift scheduled on one of the clean-up crews or at the food pantry. A lot of the residents of Boulder spent hours in the community center, reading the lists of names on the walls, endlessly hoping to connect with old friends and loved ones, but Nick couldn't think of anyone who'd remember him as anything other than that-deaf-mute-boy, couldn't think of many people whose first and last names he remembered. At least not many he hadn't seen die with his own eyes.

When he turned up the lane to the house he shared with Ralph, Nick saw a man sitting on the porch of the house. Details became clearer with each yard closer--sandy blond hair, long legs, pale face, late twenties maybe. His elbows were propped on his knees, his whole body sunk into itself the way it did from long waiting. His head was tilted down and he didn't look up at Nick's approach though Nick could tell from the clap of his feet against the sidewalk that he was making noise. When Nick got to the foot of the wooden staircase that led up to the porch he could see that the man was sleeping. He rapped his knuckles on the handrail, but the man didn't wake until Nick put his foot on the first step.

The stranger jerked his head up, startled, and Nick knew then that he had been woken by the vibration of the wood under his ass. Nick knew the man was like him, deaf, but definitely not blind if his lingering head-to-toe gaze meant anything.

[You Nick?] The man signed, pointing at Nick and then twisting his long fingers into the shapes Nick knew spelled N-I-C-K, though they went by so quickly Nick could barely catch them.

[No sign.] Nick signed back, shaking his head once sharply. He moved to walk up onto the porch, wanting to disappear into the house, but the stranger stood up to block him. The man gestured, a look of confusion on his face, his hands forming another sign Nick recognized: [deaf]. Nick nodded and opened the door to the house, letting the stranger follow.

Nick sat down on the striped couch and pulled the notepad out of his pocket. He looked at the first page he kept for introducing himself, _My name is Nick Andros. I'm deaf and mute. Sorry about that,_ and turned to a fresh page.

 _I'm Nick Andros. I'm deaf and mute, but I don't know much sign. Sorry about that._ He started to hold the pad out to the stranger, but then pulled it back and wrote again. _I can read lips._

The man read the note and his mouth went tight around the edges, his eyes wet for a second before he scrubbed his hand across them. He tore Nick's note off the pad and balled it up in his fist. Nick held out his pen, and the man grabbed it, began to write. His scribbled for a moment, his lips pressed tight together, then held out a page for Nick and continued to write.

 _My name is Jonah Bloom and when they told me there was a deaf man here I thought FINALLY I'd have somebody to TALK to!_ Jonah handed another page over, and Nick could see the imprint of the first note on the second, the letters scratched deep into the paper. _How do you not know sign? New deaf?_

Nick shook his head and pulled a second pen out of his pocket, crossed out _new_ and wrote _born_. Jonah turned away and signed to the empty wall, his hands moving too quickly for Nick to catch any of the few signs he knew. His hands were graceful and soft, and Nick thought he had probably been to college, maybe one of those special colleges he'd read about where most everyone was deaf and to be hearing was the strange thing. Jonah's signs trailed off and he let his hands sit trembling lightly on his thighs before picking the pad and pen back up.

_Your parents hearing? Didn't let you learn?_

Nick scratched through _hearing_ and wrote _dead, orphan._ He hesitated, pen hovering over the blank part of the page. _Nobody to teach. Nobody to sign with._

Jonah scratched out everything on the page and threw the notebook down on the table. He signed to himself again, the movement of his fingers small and contained this time. Nick could see in his eyes the same thing he'd seen from too many hearing people--pity.

He picked the notebook back up from the table. _I don't need you to feel sorry for me. I'm fine. Sorry I can't sign with you._ He held the pad out and after a pause Jonah took it.

Jonah scribbled something quick before handing the pad back. _I can teach you._

Nick thought about the hours and days and weeks and months that would take and when he closed his eyes he saw the dark man walking closer, getting larger. _Maybe later. If we have time later._

_You think we'll have that time? Later?_

Nick thought about the way the corn had sounded in his dream, rustling against itself in the dark. _I don't know._ He wrote the words and then brought the pad back before Jonah could take it. He underlined _don't_ and then hesitated with his pen above the paper.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

~~~

After Jonah left, Nick wandered around the house feeling strange. He had always known that he didn't fit in, no matter where he was. The silent child looking out the window of his house before his mother died, the deaf mute kid outside the society of the other orphans, the wordless stranger passing from town to town. He'd wondered if it would have been different if he'd found a way to get into one of those fancy deaf colleges, but even then he knew he'd be different from the rest--couldn't talk, didn't know sign, didn't even graduate from high school.

He'd been called dummy enough times in his life, but he didn't like to think about hearing it from other deaf people. He'd seen pity in Jonah's eyes, but at least he hadn't seen that kind of scorn. In this new re-made world, Nick guessed there wasn't as much room for looking down on people as there'd been before.

When Nick had found his way to bigger towns and cities, he'd usually been able to find one of the places where he did fit in, even without words or sounds. There was always a park or a street or a bar where he could find a man to touch him and take him in, somebody to look at him as something other than an interloper. When words didn't need to be exchanged, he was the same as anyone else, and his body--his body could talk up a storm.

But Boulder was still too shiny-new, too small of a town to have the kind of space Nick wanted. He didn't want to get fucked and then turn around and see a man he knew from the town hall, from the committees. Everything had been a lot simpler when he'd been the kind of guy who blew into town and blew out. He might not have always known where he'd sleep at night, but he'd had the comfort of knowing he could leave at a moment's notice. A job was a job, and when he needed money in his pocket there was usually somebody needing a man in the stock room or the cannery or some other job that kept his body busy and let his mind wander free.

~~~

Two days later, Nick found himself still thinking about Jonah. His hands had looked so talented, and though Nick saw about as little point in learning sign here in the Free Zone as he did back in the orphanage, he wondered if they couldn't maybe teach each other a little something. He didn't have any clue as to where Jonah was living, but he knew almost everyone on the welcoming committee. With any luck, Jonah wasn't one of those loners who had slipped into the city unnoticed.

The ride into town was different from the one out of town. People sat on their porches and worked in their yards and if Nick couldn't hear any greetings he could see most of his neighbors' hands going up to wave at him, people pausing in their work to nod in his direction. Before everything changed, Nick had more often noticed people peeking through their window blinds as he walked down the road, big pack on his back and scruff of beard on his face. He didn't know how to make sense of the change, but he had to admit that it was nice. Nice in a way that made him want to shoulder up his old bag and hike on out of town some days, but good all the same.

Sure enough, Susie Brock had been working at signing new people into town the day Jonah Bloom rode in on a blue motorcycle. "Cute guy," she said, widening her eyes as she pursed her lips to draw out the first word. "Hope it's okay I told him to go looking for you."

 _That's fine, Susie, thanks,_ Nick wrote. _Know where I might find him?_

"Oh yeah, he moved into one of the townhouses over on Pierre. Um, number 1026. I remembered because that is--was--my sister's birthday." Susie bit her lip, and Nick patted her on the arm, glad for once that he wasn't expected to say anything.

~~~

Jonah was outside when Nick found him, on his knees in the newly tilled patch of ground he had for a front yard. He had a small shovel in one hand and a basket of potatoes by his side, and he looked up, squinting a little into the sun as Nick crouched down in front of him.

Nick held out his notebook, and Jonah brushed his hands off on his pants before taking it. _I'm sorry I blew you off the other day._ When Jonah looked up from reading Nick smiled, trying to show his interest--not so much in sign, though he wasn't against some lessons if there was time.

Jonah nodded and stood up, gesturing back toward his door with a question on his face. Nick nodded and watched Jonah walk away for a moment before following.

Inside the house was dim and cool and Jonah walked up on the first step of the staircase before turning around. He arched an eyebrow and dropped his hands to the button of his mud-stained khaki pants. Nick nodded slowly and walked forward until he stood at the foot of the stairs, Jonah's face inches above his own but close enough to touch, the faint bristle of stubble familiar under his palm.

As they ran up the stairs, the vibrations of Jonah's footsteps reverberated with Nick's, shaking up through the soles of his shoes. In the bedroom, they stood looking at each other as they undid their clothes. Slanting late afternoon light filtered in through the thin curtains letting Nick see Jonah's body--torso pale and thicker than his own, not quite athletic but probably hardened by the plague summer as they all were, legs strong and lightly covered in hair turned gold in the light. Jonah pushed off his sneakers then stripped off his boxers, and Nick was done with watching.

On his knees, rough nubs of carpet digging into his bones, Nick took Jonah's cock into his mouth and wrapped his hands around Jonah's hips to hold him steady. The way Jonah's body moved against his tongue, his fingers, told Nick everything he needed to know. There, Nick's mouth spoke every word he needed to say, and his hands were fluent in all the right signs. If any man had ever called Nick Andros a dummy while he was on his knees, Nick hadn't been looking at his lips to read it.

Jonah tensed under Nick's hands, his body humming right on the edge, and Nick held onto him as he came, steadied him as he slumped back to land on the bed. Jonah's lazy smile said thank you and his hand sliding down Nick's chest to his belly said soon.

He looked at the bed and wondered if Jonah dreamed when he slept there, wondered if he'd ever dreamed that he could hear. He wondered if Jonah still had those dreams. Nick closed his eyes and let the cool sunlight shine through his eyelids. In the night sometimes he could hear, just for a moment, a long, quivering moment when he can't see anything but he can hear a rhythmic sound, a sharp ticking.

When he woke, he could never explain to himself how he knew that what he heard was the sound of a clock.

Nick felt the bed dip beside him and then the heat of Jonah's mouth on his cock, his hands spread out over Nick's ribs. Nick let go of the ticking that haunted his dreams and focused on the beating of his heart, on the rhythm of Jonah's tongue flickering against his skin.

He let go.

 


End file.
